Roasted Red Pepper Soup

In the very bottom of my cupboard, buried deep under piles of books, is a large, green shoe box. This shoe box holds around 300 recipes that I have cut from magazines and leaflets. Shamefully, I have only actually tried a small percentage of these recipes. Every now and then I dig it out and find one to make, and that's how I found this little beauty! There's nothing tastier than sweet, roasted red peppers. So much better than green peppers. Give it a try!




Ingredients:

• 4 red peppers, halved and de-seeded
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 500ml vegetable stock
• 390g tin chopped tomatoes
• Large handful roughly chopped basil leaves

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius / 350 degrees fahrenheit. Place the peppers on a baking tray, drizzle with a little olive oil and roast for 20-15 minutes.
   
2. Meanwhile, over a low heat, fry the onion and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add the tomato puree and warm through.
   
3. Once the peppers are roasted, remove them from the oven and set aside until cool enough to handle, then peel off their skins, roughly chop and add to the onion and garlic mixture until combined.
   
4. Stir through the stock and chopped tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes then season with salt and black pepper. Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth. Top with the basil before serving.
   

Serves 3